About gender impact assessments

About gender impact assessments

Gender impact assessments are designed to help organisations think critically about how policies, programs and services will meet the different needs of women, men and gender diverse people.

The purpose of gender impact assessments is to create better and fairer outcomes, and make sure all people have equal access to opportunities and resources.

Why gender impact assessments are important

Your gender can affect your needs and experiences. This means that policies, programs and services can affect people of different genders in different ways.

If organisations don’t think about how their work affects different people, they might unintentionally reinforce inequalities.

That’s why the Gender Equality Act 2020 requires certain organisations (defined entities) to do gender impact assessments so that all their new policies, programs and services and those up for review, which directly and significantly impact the public, benefit all Victorians.

The short video below illustrates the importance of gender impact assessments.

What you need to do

If your organisation is a defined entity, you need to decide which policies, programs and services will have a ‘direct and significant impact on the public’, based on your own knowledge and understanding of the circumstances.

A gender impact assessment must:

• assess the effects that the policy, program or service may have on people of different genders
• explain how the policy, program or service will be changed to better support Victorians of all genders and promote gender equality
• where practical, apply an intersectional approach to consider how gender inequality can be compounded by disadvantage or discrimination that a person may experience on the basis of other factors such as age, disability or ethnicity.

Gender impact assessments should be included in your normal process for developing policies, programs and services, whether small or large.

The gender impact assessment process

The Commission has compiled a range of resources to guide you through the gender impact assessment process.